The Heat is On

It's April, and for us Senegalese Peace Corps Volunteers that means its hot outside! I believe that it gets up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in some places. I don't know how hot it gets in my village because I don't have a thermometer but when lunch is over but during the day time its hard to do much its so hot. The whole village does pretty much nothing between noon and 5:00pm. A couple of days ago after lunch I wanted to lay down. Its supposed to be a few degrees cooler in the hut so I put my plastic mat thing on the floor and laid on it and just stared at the ceiling as sweat dripped down my whole body. You have to lay carefully as well, if you have any part of your skin touching any other skin its a sweat trap, so you have to really spread out. I have a bed with a mattress but it is a heat trap and I haven't even laid on it once in a couple of weeks. Anyway after laying for about 20 minutes staring blankly and occasionally shoeing my dog away, who was curious as to why I was on the floor, I gave up trying to sleep and went back outside to sit with my sis and a bunch of other people who were braiding each other. As it turned out it was cooler outside, but only because there was a breeze. If there is no wind it is a lot hotter outside.
At night my sleep schedule is strange. After dinner I lay on a bamboo table with my sis and a kid or two and we kinda chat 9:30 then we go pull water. We have oved to pulling water at night because there are less people. Then we lay back down and fall asleep until about midnight. Then something wakes me up and I go and sleep in my backyard for the rest of the night. It gets cool and pleasant at night. I love sleeping outside. I sleepon a fold out cot. I can basically sleep on any surface now. hard serfices are no problem. Heck, yesterday I took a nap in a pile of leaves behind a rock.
The hot weather doesn't always stop me. A couple of days ago I put on my gardening hat and sunglasses and a and built a bamboo and mosquito net shade structure for my future Chinese cabbage plot. (pictured without net)

It took a good few hours of working in the hottest part of the day. My mom came up to me when I was done and told me that I shouldn't be working in the sun, that it would hurt my body. Oh well. So yeah, I have a cabbage and tomato pepeniere just because. We had planted cabbage several times and something kept eating it so I made a mosquito net cover for it and tried again. Here is my baby cabbage. Perdy, isnt it?

There is regular cabbage which might die in the heat, and there is Chinese cabbage which is supposed to be more heat tolerant. I plan on giving them both shade and when it grows I bet I can get my mom to sell it in our weekly market. Then I will let the family fight over who gets to spend the money. Argh. Oh and then there is the possibility that the heat could kill it anyway, or something else. Oh well.
So April is a special month for us Agroforestry volunteers because that is the time that most of the tree pepineres are started. I started by making my own this week, just because. I got sand (I could write a novel on my sand collecting experiences, but this is all you get), and manure, and mixed it together. I dug a hole. Then it was time to fill the tree sacks so I told my mom one morning, who was sitting around munching on a green mango, that I needed some children to put dirt in bags for me. She called over my little 6 year old brother, spouted off some rapid Pular to him and off he went. He returned with about 15 kids from ages 2-11. They filled about 150 sacks in about 20 minutes. It was an amazing sight. They were all so happy to go into the Tubabs garden area and work for her. They all worked at their own pace, some filling up sacks quickly with no problem and then there was the 2 year old who came up to me crying with an empty sack in his hand. I would help him open the sack, show him how to put dirt in it and he would approach me 5 minutes later with a sack about 25% full. That was pretty darn cute. Here is a pic of the kids filling pots. The little boy standing in the light blue is the 2 year old.

After all the sacks were filled and we moved them into the hole I dug I gave each kid a nice piece of tattoo soccer chewing gum and we had a tattoo chewing gum party. The big kids helped the little kids put their tattoos on and I helped as well. It was a fun day.

So soon hopefully the pepineres will be sprouting up all over the village. Im hoping to do a few large projects and several small ones in my first year. Oh, and I dont think I mentioned this but a couple of weeks ago we had an agroforestry conference where all the Senegal agfo volunteers came together in Kedougou and we all talked about our experiences and got to discuss work and ask questions and we got seeds. It was really helpful.
Life in the village is... happening. It's hot. I've gone on nature adventures (pictured below) a couple of times to get some time away from "o haali tun," (He was just joking) and "a fenay" (You're lying).

My sister keeps reminding me that it's all part of the culture. Still it can be tiring when people constantly try to chose your future husband and when every other word out of their mouth is them asking you for something, including the shirt off your own back. It seems sometimes as if the conversation never goes beyond any of that, which makes one occasionally wonder what worth they are to the villagers. I take my sisters words to heart though and I realize that I'm still adjusting to a new culture, and in turn I am finding out more about myself in seeing how I deal with cultural clashes. Other than wanting time to myself here and there, I generally take it pretty well. It helps to see things from their side as well. Perhaps they don't quite know what to say to a stranger and that is the easiest thing to say. Like when someone is really tall, people tend to say, "Hey, you are really tall."

Just for the record, here is an example of words I hear lots and lots and lots and lots..
I like your panya, give it to me. Give me your shirt. Hi Dienaba (me). How is your garden? When the carrots are ready will you give me some? Oh and some salad seeds to? Good morning. No, I didn't eat breakfast (lie). Can you give me something to eat? Bring me some American food from your room. I had another man try to physically drag me ino my room so I would give him some American food from it ( and no, people don't know I have food in there, they assume). Give me a mango. Help me find a white wife. Marry me. Marry my friend. I twisted my wrist, will you give me a bandage? Give me a stuffed animal. Give me a radio. Let me use your phone. I'm leaving town, give me a present. Hey what are you doing? Watering your garden? Thats nice, can I borrow your knife? Can you give me some soap? When you go to Kedougou, bring me back some phone credit. Yes, I know I can buy it here but I don't have any money and I need to make a call. Buy me an MP3 player. Let me use your knife so I can protect myself. And the list goes on. About 9 out of 10 interactions sometimes it seems starts with "give me this." One of my friends every time I see him, augments what he asks for. The last time it was 500,000francs. I realize that people are joking. But often times they aren't as well. I give all sorts of answers, some work, some don't. I walked by a group of old men one day and one of them shouted me me, "Hey! I want a white wife and I want her to come live here and give me 8 children!" I replied by saying, "That is wonderful, I want 500 million francs and 700 cows and 200 sheep." Then I would look to the man sitting next to him and ask, "And you? What do you want?"

On another note, it's great having a dog. Well it has been great. Though when people see him walking with me down the street they tell me "Hey, give me your dog." Thats awesome because people here don't even like dogs that much. Raising a dog in my village will be a fun experience. He eats rice and peanut butter and corn and beans instead of dog food. He has no fences and leashes don't exist. He is covered in fleas and ticks (I take them off every day but they keep getting back on him). He has no vaccinations, he has all his dew claws and there is no spaying and neutering here, it just doesn't exist. I'm the only one who touches my dog. I always wash my hands afterwards. So far he knows only me and everyone else is a stranger. I think it's a good way for him to start out. He is starting to follow me places like to the store or the health clinic. He is good at walking with me. He gets let out of my yard in the evening and early morning and then he often finds something dead to eat to feed is need for protein. So far he is a good dog. I would say he is only about 9 weeks old right now. This is Fatu, my baby sis and Hendu in my hut.

Thats all for now.